The only review that matters - as detailed and in-depth as ever. "I'm giving the MacBook Pro with Retina Display our bronze Editor's Choice award. Making it the first Mac to ever receive one. It would have been a silver had the software story been even stronger (iWork, Mountain Lion, Office and Photoshop being ready at launch would have been a feat worth rewarding). And it would have been a gold had Apple been able to deliver all of that but without sacrificing end-user upgradability." The device has performance issues which Mountain Lion will address (to a degree), but for the rest, AnandTech's review details - without being pro or anti-anything - just how good this new MBP really is. As a sidenote, Windows 8 on the retina display further confirms the classic desktop is dead to Microsoft: it still can't handle high-DPI displays properly. With the desktop going the way of the dodo, why would the company make it so?

1/Without arguing that everyone should know everything about his car, a minimum of technical knowledge is required to drive safely, which is why it is a requirement in order to get a driver's license in many countries. Otherwise, you become like these people who never inflate their tires and have a spectacular car accident one day on the highway. Or, less dramatically, like this high school philosophy teacher who once arrived half an hour late because his bike gear shifter has derailed and he didn't know how to fix it, and so had to wait for someone who knew to pass by on a small forest road.

2/Hundreds of shops is actually not a lot in the grand scheme of thing. I live in one of the richest cities of France, and the nearest Apple store is about two hours away, in the middle of a crowded mall. In contrast, I have nice small computer shops 10 minutes of walk away from home, and know of one who specializes in Macs about 30 minutes of walk and tram away. No company, no matter how big it is, can beat the omnipresence and calm environment of a large network of independent actors. (Although, as you mentioned, they can try to compensate for that with more expensive services)

1. Operating a car is not the same as modifying or otherwise fixing the car. Tire pressure (much like charing a laptop) is operating the car. Modifying some facet of the car to change it's performance characteristics is beyond the vast majority of car users. The same applies to cell phones, refrigerators, toasters, microwave ovens, and virtually all other appliances. Why are computers in a separate category? The reality is their not, not to most people anyway, just those of us who can do such things.

2. I'll certainly accept your point on this. If your away from an Apple store then your service experience is much weaker. In fairness though, if your talking about fixing the device, then most manufacturers - certainly Dell and IBM which I have used for years - will either require you to send in the device or (given the right warranty) send people out to you. I've not gone to 'local shop' to service a computer for decades. (Though I do appreciate the experience might differ in other countries it was much the same when I lived in London and Brussels.)

I do think that, as inevitable as this may be, we are heading towards a PC market where consumer devices will be essentially disposable (refurbishable) rather than maintainable.

1. I agree with that line of thought, to a degree. I do not think that all users should know how to service their hardware, but I also think that being tied to the manufacturer of a device for servicing is a bad idea.

To go back to vehicle analogies, I know tons of people who are happy owners of cars and bikes which have not been produced for years, and in some case whose manufacturer does not exist anymore. If these had been produced as a soldered black box, forbidding them to request help from a local mechanic, they would probably have had to throw them away as soon as something minor would break down inside after the end of the manufacturer support period, which is a waste of money and natural resources.

If Apple had their say, I bet I wouldn't have been able to fix that iMac G4 which I have ended up working on for the past few months while my team was waiting for funding to buy new computers

2. It depends on the damage done or the complexity of the modification. I agree that you will always need manufacturer help to fix major problems (like a motherboard breakage for example). But for small issues, such as a dirty fan or a lack of ram, I honestly think that unless your hardware is still under warranty, asking the manufacturer is a waste of time and money and shouldn't be needed.

Most of the time, I don't ask a local computer shops for these small repairs either because I know how to do it myself anyway. But few people have this knowledge. And even for me, there is stuff which I don't know how to do and am not eager to learn, but which the guy next door can do for a very attractive price, such as replacing a laptop hinge or finding where the CMOS battery is located and changing it. What's more, these shops are also a good place to buy hardware such as mice or RAM, since you have someone near you to yell at if it breaks after a few days.